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What It Is Like to Go to War (Hardcover)

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Staff Reviews

This should be required reading for not just veterans and active military, but for our politicians who send those men to war. Karl Marlantes lays himself open in this narrative of his Vietnam experience. He
focuses on the impact that war had on him; its emotional, psychological,
and mental effects. His deep reflection and careful analysis grant
even those who haven't served the insight on the consequences of combat
on an individual.A Hudson Booksellers Best Book of 2011.

— Ed, Atlanta

October 2011 Indie Next List

“This is a courageous, noble, and intelligent grapple with myth, history, and spirituality that beautifully elevates the conversation on the role of the military in today's world. Marlantes volunteers his knowledge and experience (and really, his soul) to the cause of crafting the model of a just and ethical warrior in the 21st century. The long-overdue reckoning that Marlantes' novel Matterhorn deftly demanded of America is enhanced and extended with this new work. It is an emotional, honest, and affecting primer for all Americans on war and the national psyche. We ignore this book at our own peril.”
— Ed Conklin, Chaucer's Books, Santa Barbara, CA

Fall '12 Reading Group List

“This is a courageous, noble, and intelligent grapple with myth, history, and spirituality that beautifully elevates the conversation on the role of the military in today's world. Marlantes volunteers his knowledge and experience (and really, his soul) to the cause of crafting the model of a just and ethical warrior in the 21st century. The long-overdue reckoning that Marlantes' novel Matterhorn deftly demanded of America is enhanced and extended with this new work. It is an emotional, honest, and affecting primer for all Americans on war and the national psyche. We ignore this book at our own peril.”
— Ed Conklin, Chaucer's Books, Santa Barbara, CA

Description

From the author of the award-winning, best-selling novel Matterhorn, comes a brilliant nonfiction book about war

In 1968, at the age of twenty-three, Karl Marlantes was dropped into the highland jungle of Vietnam, an inexperienced lieutenant in command of a platoon of forty Marines who would live or die by his decisions. Marlantes survived, but like many of his brothers in arms, he has spent the last forty years dealing with his war experience. In What It Is Like to Go to War, Marlantes takes a deeply personal and candid look at what it is like to experience the ordeal of combat, critically examining how we might better prepare our soldiers for war. Marlantes weaves riveting accounts of his combat experiences with thoughtful analysis, self-examination, and his readings--from Homer to The Mahabharata to Jung. He makes it clear just how poorly prepared our nineteen-year-old warriors are for the psychological and spiritual aspects of the journey.

Just as Matterhorn is already being acclaimed as acclaimed as a classic of war literature, What It Is Like to Go to War is set to become required reading for anyone--soldier or civilian--interested in this visceral and all too essential part of the human experience.

About the Author

A graduate of Yale University and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, Karl Marlantes served as a Marine in Vietnam, where he was awarded the Navy Cross, the Bronze Star, two Navy Commendation medals for valor, two Purple Hearts, and ten air medals. He is the author of Matterhorn, which won numerous prizes, including the William E. Colby Award given by the Pritzker Military Library, the Center for Fiction's Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize, the 2011 Indies' Choice Award for Adult Debut Book of the Year, and the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation's James Webb Award for Distinguished Fiction. He lives in rural Washington.

Praise For…

Karl Marlantes has written a staggeringly beautiful book on combatwhat it feels like, what the consequences are and above all, what society must do to understand it. In my eyes he has become the preeminent literary voice on war of our generation. He is a natural storyteller and a deeply profound thinker who not only illuminates war for civilians, but also offers a kind of spiritual guidance to veterans themselves. As this generation of warriors comes home, they will be enormously helped by what Marlantes has writtenI’m sure he will literally save lives.”Sebastian Junger

Marlantes brings candor and wrenching self-analysis to bear on his combat experiences in Vietnam, in a memoir-based meditation whose intentions are three-fold: to help soldiers-to-be understand what they’re in for; to help veterans come to terms with what they’ve seen and done; and to help policymakers know what they’re asking of the men they send into combat.”The New Yorker

What It Is Like to Go to War is a well-crafted and forcefully argued work that contains fresh and important insights into what it’s like to be in a war and what it does to the human psyche.”The Washington Post

Marlantes is the best American writer right now on war . . . With What It Is Like to Go to War a second Marlantes book resides on the top shelf of American literature.”Anthony Swofford, author of Jarhead

What It Is Like to Go to War ought to be mandatory reading by potential infantry recruits and by residents of any nation that sends its kidsMarlantes’s wordinto combat.”San Francisco Chronicle

In this thoughtful, literate work of self-exorcism, Marlantes tells tales of incredible bravery as well as brutality.”People Magazine

Marlantes has written a sparklingly provocative nonfiction book. . . He is an exceptional writer and his depictions here are vivid.”BookPage

A gripping, first-person plea to consider the impact on the human spirit of being a soldier.”Huffington Post

To say that this book is brilliant is an understatementMarlantes is the absolute master of taking the psyche of the combat veteran and translating it into words that the civilian or non-veteran can understand. I have read many, many books on war and this is the first time that I've ever read exactly what the combat veteran thinks and feelsnothing I have ever read before has hit home in my heart like this book.”Gunnery Sergeant Terence D’Alesandro, 3rd Batallion, 5th Marines, U.S. Marine Corps

Wrenchingly honest. . . . Digging as deeply into his own life as he does into the larger sociological and moral issues, Marlantes presents a riveting, powerfully written account of how, after being taught to kill, he learned to deal with the aftermath.”Publishers Weekly (starred review)

A valiant effort to explain and make peace with war’s awesome consequences for human beings.”Kirkus Reviews

What It Is Like to Go to War offers profound insight on how we must prepare our youth who become our warriors for their hard and uncompromising journey through war’s hell and back home again.”Vietnam Magazine

With war such a part of contemporary American life, this book is deeply important, as timely and urgent as contemporary on-the-ground reporting from Afghanistan and Iraq.”The Minneapolis Star Tribune

A sound debunking of anything smacking of the glory of warfarebut written with compassion, honest and wit for men and now women who fight and for all of those who care about them.”St. Louis Dispatch

A slim spiritual guide. . . Marlantes’s book is a sincere plea for better soldiers and veterans.”Seattle Weekly

What It Is Like to Go to War is a courageous, noble and intelligent grapple with myth, history, and spirituality that beautifully elevates the cultural conversation on the role of the military in today’s world. It is an emotional, honest, and affecting primer for all Americans on war and the national psyche, and we ignore this book at our own peril.”Ed Conklin, Chaucer’s Books, Santa Barbara

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